Saturday, December 26, 2009

Christmas Dinner

(Not much to report on the presents - when you're grown up you don't get much, and there's nothing you HAVE to have, like when you were little. I was a little disappointed that I asked for a pot [see previous entries on burning foods that have to be simmered for hours] and was given a frying pan. But we'll exchange that and be GTG.)But the dinner! I have never had everything turn out perfectly as it did last night. I mean, no room for improvement. The star was definitely the ham. Usually I buy a small (2.5 lb) boneless ham like thing, because no one likes ham except me and my daughter. But at the supermarket on Thursday, those were $10 and a real ham was on sale for $6, so I went for it. AndI didn't do anything except stick it in the oven. So many tastes! The outside was a bit burnt, so it had that blackened taste like bacon. Then further inside the meat was so intense, crumbly. Then finally, next to the bone, it was moist and so sweet, like a pork loin dipped in butter. Wow. The pickled garlic that I put up at Thanksgiving was different than I expected - kind of sweet, which was nice, when you didn't expect it to be.

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About Me

I am a professor of religious studies, and the author of several books on the Bible and theology. I grew up in New York, Virginia, and New Mexico. I attended St. John's College, Annapolis, MD (BA, 1988), Harvard Divinity School (MTS, 1990), and the University of Notre Dame (PhD, 1995). I live in upstate New York with my wife and two wonderful kids.
Starting in 2006, I had one of those strange midlife things, and turned my analysis towards horror films and literature. I have written
Gospel of the Living Dead: George Romero's Visions of Hell on Earth (Baylor, 2006) - WINNER, 2006 Bram Stoker Award;
Dying to Live: A Novel of Life among the Undead (Permuted Press, 2007);
Orpheus and the Pearl(Magus Press, 2008); and
Dying to Live: Life Sentence(Permuted Press, 2008).